Following Pál
And the Lost Cello Concerto
A film by Hạnh Nguyễn
Feature documentary · 76 minutes
Amsterdam New Cinema Film Festival 2026
Won “Best War Themed Feature”
Next screening: Miami Jewish Film Festival, January 2027
About the FilmA voice nearly erased by history is heard again.
A grandson’s quest to resurrect his grandfather’s lost music becomes a powerful journey of remembrance, survival, and hope after the Holocaust.
Decades after his grandfather disappeared during the Holocaust, Paul sets out to uncover the man behind the few photographs, memories, and musical fragments he left behind. His search leads to a forgotten cello concerto, unfinished, nearly lost, and waiting in silence for nearly a century. As musicians reconstruct the work from surviving manuscripts, Paul finds himself not only reclaiming his grandfather’s music, but confronting the inheritance of loss, memory, and survival.
When the concerto finally rises from the page and fills a concert hall, a voice nearly erased by history is heard again.
Key art by jenniferdurso.com
Pál Hermann
“A cellist of first magnitude.” The Evening Standard, 1930s
(1902–1944)
Pál Hermann was born in Budapest in 1902. As a teenager he was already studying cello and composition at the Liszt Academy, in the circle of Bartók and Kodály. He went on to perform across Europe, often with his close friend, the violinist Zoltán Székely, and in 1927 he gave the premiere of Frank Bridge’s Cello Sonata. He was building a name as both a cellist and a composer.
In 1930 he settled in Berlin with his Dutch wife, Ada, and taught at Hindemith’s music school in Neukölln. Two years later their daughter, Corrie, was born. When the Nazis came to power, he left Germany for Brussels and then Paris. During the occupation he went into hiding in the south of France under a false name.
In April 1944 he was arrested in Toulouse and taken to Drancy. On 15 May he was deported on Convoy 73, headed for the Baltic states. He never returned. He was 42.
For decades his music went unplayed. Today it is being heard again. In Lviv, at a concert honoring the victims of Convoy 73, the cello concerto he never finished had its world premiere.
Pál Hermann with his daughter Corrie
The Team
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Triết Lê
Animator & Designer
Triết Lê is a Vietnamese animated filmmaker, designer, illustrator and educator who turns complex stories, concepts and emotions into images that resonate. Triết's short films have screened at international festivals including Anima Brussels, London Animation Festival, KROK, Melbourne Animation Festival and Seoul Animation Festival. Triết has taught at RMIT in Saigon and earned a Master in Visual Arts in Graphic Storytelling, summa cum laude, from LUCA School of Arts in Belgium.
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Hạnh Nguyễn
Director & Producer
Hạnh Nguyễn is a Los Angeles–based director, cinematographer and editor, and the founder of HẠNH, a creative studio for stories of craft. Hạnh's documentary Caffeinated has played festivals and television around the world. Having lived with a stutter for a lifetime, Hạnh finds a voice through the stories of others, and tells them with patience and care.
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Mabel Valdiviezo
Editor
Mabel Valdiviezo is an award-winning Latine filmmaker, editor and interdisciplinary artist whose work explores migration, gender, and social and environmental justice. Her feature documentary Prodigal Daughter / Hija Pródiga won Best Documentary at the Arizona International Film Festival and was nominated for Cinema Tropical's Best Latinx USA award. Her credits include work for PBS, PBS World and KQED, and she is an alumna of the Sundance Producers Conference, the Gotham Documentary Lab, IDA, BAVC and NALIP.
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Derek Baird
Composer
Derek Baird writes original music for film and new media. Derek's work includes music for PBS's Wide Angle and the Emmy-winning series Exposé: America's Investigative Reports, the score for Hurley, the TIFF-selected documentary In Exile, the award-winning game Nevermind, and Hạnh's earlier film Caffeinated. Derek studied in the graduate Screen Scoring program at the University of Southern California.
The MusicThe music, recorded and free to play.
At the heart of Following Pál is Pál Hermann’s own music. Toccata Classics has released his complete surviving works in three volumes, along with the cello concerto, given its world premiere in Lviv in 2018 with cellist Clive Greensmith.
Hermann’s scores are publicly available on IMSLP.
Read “My Father, Pál Hermann,” by Corrie Hermann, on Toccata Classics →